It’s exactly the circumstance Donald Trump tried to avoid. But Trump’s own actions have made an FBI investigation into the president himself a reality.

Firing James Comey, the FBI director, was, by Trump’s explanation, a way to stop a “witch hunt” against his team’s alleged ties to Russia. It led, within weeks, to the appointment of a special prosecutor, Comey’s FBI predecessor, Robert Mueller. And now Mueller is investigating Trump himself for possible obstruction of justice—by firing Comey, who had led the FBI inquiry.

So naturally, the sane people (relatively) in the White House are scrambling to control the damage and prevent the Orange Menace from digging his own grave even deeper, while some shreds of their own sanity still remain.

With the crisis engulfing Trump’s young presidency intensifying, senators, Trump aides, former prosecutors, and FBI veterans are sending the White House an urgent warning: Whatever you do, don’t. Fire. Mueller.

…

White House officials are still insisting to the president that he should leave Mueller in his post. “We are all advising him not to [get rid of] Mueller. That has not changed,” one Trump aide told The Daily Beast. “It would be an absolute nuclear explosion if he did.”

But some privately concede that Trump is so unpredictable—and so frustrated with the persistence of the investigation and its cost in political capital—that they’re not ruling it out. Another White House official conceded that it would be “suicide” if Trump sacked Mueller at this point, but “I’d be insincere if I said it wasn’t a concern that the president would try to do it anyway.”

They’ve learned what is predictable about a narcissist: unpredictability! Woot! Also, undoing the frantic work his damage-control agents have done and expanding the devastation, both at once.

Asked what the internal game plan should be, one senior Trump administration official replied, “Keep him away from Twitter, dear God, keep him away from Twitter.”

“The president did this to himself,” the official added.

So far, God has not answered the desperate prayers of this or any other Drumpf minions. Another one points out that he’s really done it to himself twice: firing FBI director Comey and then putting out the idea of firing special counsel Mueller, likely leading to Mueller or someone else leaking the fact that statements made by Comey that the predisent was not personally under investigation are no longer operative.

A second senior administration official pointed to Trump’s role in propagating the rumor that he might fire Mueller—according to the Times, he felt the prospect of being sacked might convince Mueller to resolve the investigation in Trump’s favor—and suggested that the leak to the Post on Wednesday might have been an unintended consequence of that move.

Great plan. He has the best plans! The most fantastic plans!

“Whoever leaked [news of the obstruction investigation] was obviously reading that he was thinking about giving Mueller the boot,” the official said. Trump “shot himself in the foot again with this cockamamie scheme to get Mueller to play ball.”

Shot himself in the foot! Cockamamie scheme! You can tell his aides love him. Whoever supplied this quote was probably one of those thanking Dear Leader for the blessing of serving under his brilliant rule around that table the other day. (Cue bubbanomics here.)

What, according to people who are entirely sane, could happen?

Already, legal scholars have been gaming out the implications of Trump sacking Mueller.

[former United States attorney Barbara] McQuade is one of several former Justice Department and White House officials who warned such a firing would likely trigger a cascade of resignations within the Justice Department. “We could then have a repeat of the Saturday Night Massacre or the Sally Yates Massacre,” she said.